Photovoltaic plus Storage – Part 1, Technology

Hi Matt:

A couple of points regarding your question.

The next generation for mobility will be lithium-chemistry solid-state electrolyte batteries. Although these have some enhanced capabilities that apply to BESS, they are mainly an improvement for mobility applications.

Regarding material costs there are many tracks running that may decrease this for future batteries.

One is obviously to reduce the cost of lithium and other rare materials that go into lithium-chemistry batteries. One track is to use sodium in lieu of lithium. Both of these elements are alkali metals, and have similar characteristics, except sodium is much less expensive. 

Also reducing cobalt is a big priority. Currently it looks like a move to 811 NCM (Nickel Cobalt Manganese) cathode chemistry will result in massive reductions in the cobalt content in lieu of nickel. 811 quite simply stands for 8 parts nickel, 1 part cobalt, 1 part manganese. It is the natural evolution from the traditional 111 chemistry (equal parts of each), 523 (5 parts nickel, 2 parts cobalt and 3 parts manganese) and 622.

The reason that I've taken this excursion into LiIon chemistry is that, as chemistries and configurations designed specifically for mobility and BESS, there will be a natural tendency for their chemistry and configuration to diverge, potentially reducing their additive economies of scale.

Both applications have very robust and rapidly growing  markets, so I believe this divergence will have little impact on their future, and may actually accelerate each of their growth.

-John

Hi Bob:

Existing (gas-fueled) peakers typically run from around 2:00PM to around 9:00PM. PV is symmetrical (roughly 8:00AM until 4:00 PM with a peak at noon in the summer). In order minimize the carbon from peakers and greatly increase the value of the PV-source power, the batteries will charge in the morning and match the peakers run-period.